From NPA’s “The Bulletin” newspaper, February 2010

In June last year EzyMedia won the contract to build the new website for Australia’s National Publishing Association, NPA (www.panpa.org.au). The vision was a cutting edge media association site that exemplified best practice and added significant value to its membership.

“We were of course excited by the opportunity,” said John Hancock, managing director of EzyMedia. “It seems mostly customers only want a fraction of what you have under your bonnet, so when Mark told me he wanted everything and then some, I knew we were in for a ride!”

Together John, Mark and his team brainstormed ideas around who are and could become NPA’s members and what they seek from such an association. A dynamic website was obviously crucial. Key ‘must-have’ characteristics quickly included:

• Easy to navigate
• Daily, relevant and informative content
• Involvement of members
• Industry events calendar
• Sponsorship opportunities for members
• A members’ directory
• Automated e-newsletters based on aggregated website content
• Leading media technologies, eg RSS, Video, Blog, Twitter, Facebook etc.

The build was of course not without its challenges. EzyMedia initially outsourced the design, but 5-weeks later chose to start this in-house from scratch.

“Tailored design was a new area for us,” John remarks. “Most of our resources were previously focused on the underlying technology, the engine behind our websites. This is why we outsourced NPA’s design from the very beginning. Unfortunately that decision cost us money, time and frustration, but it is all good learning.” EzyMedia made a quick recovery and within a fortnight of assuming responsibility for design, they had sign-off.

Scoping the NPA site-build was also quite a challenge, because the customer did not know what was possible or indeed exactly what they wanted. To John and his team’s credit, EzyMedia moved fluidly amidst change requests, requests for new functionality, staff changes and even a NPA office move.

“John is a man of high business integrity,” said Mark Hollands, CEO of NPA. “We certainly kept him on his toes, but he delivered on every last commitment and more. We were impressed with John’s transparency throughout the project and delighted with the final result.”

John Hancock founded the publishing software company EzyMedia in 2006. John launched his own newspaper in Canberra in 2004, ‘The Word’, (monthly circulation of 35000 full colour tabloid copies) and based on a blueprint of a better way of publishing newspapers, he was able to raise significant venture capital to build a content and sales management system plus peripherals for community newspaper publishers.

Today EzyMedia provides websites for 25 community newspapers across Australia, and has just signed up the Australian Defence Newspaper Group. EzyMedia is now moving into the US market. For more information visit www.ezymedia.com or contact John on 0466 281755.

NPA would like to say a big thank you to John and his team for a wonderful job throughout the development of the NPA website and we have no hesitation recommending EzyMedia to other newspaper publishers. Well done!

This article is provided to assist your decisions and is a guide only. You are strongly advised to login to the EzyMedia forum and research other sites and books about publishing, media, marketing and sales.

PREPARATION

Keys to success

A. Easily digested, informative and enjoyable content

B. Relevance to your community

C. Distribution

D. Account Management

E. Good systems

Week 1 Days 1 -3

Market Research

Go to your local libraries, cafes, newsagents, take-aways and pick up as many newspapers and magazines that serve your local community. These do not include national titles. Most towns will have 2-3 as a minimum. Some towns will have publications targeted specifically to certain groups of suburbs.

Search online for websites that are serving your local community. Some of these might be run by government, councils, radio stations etc. Create a list of all publications and websites in 16-point font on blank paper. Create the same list in 12 point font on lined paper, 3-times for 3-groups: 14 - 25yrs; 26 -50yrs; 51yrs+.

With your clipboard and pen, go to different shopping centres and other high traffic areas of your town. Ask passersby to select from your 16-point font list in preferential order 1-3 what their publication or website they read regularly. Note the results in the relevant groups.

If you want to further sophisticate the survey, you can split your initial 3-groups into 2: male/female, but unless you specifically want to target one or the other with your publication, it is best to simply try to get a reasonably even number of both genders in your survey.

Day 4

Spend the morning in a couple of cafes that stock a good selection of these other publications. Sit in high-traffic areas with a few stands and note what publications are the most popular. In the afternoon, visit the websites of your region's 3 most popular publications. Contact them and request a media kit or rates card.

Day 5

Choose what your publication will be about. Generally niche publications are more appropriate for big towns and general community-news type publications are best for towns. You need to consider what type of publication you are going to run, your audience, the size/look, frequency, stock, relevant distribution models and how you are going to sell into your market. Also draw up a list of your 10 favourite names for your publication. The name should immediately discern what your publication is about and what sort of audience you are targeting.

WEEK 2

Day 6

Bank Account

Why a business account? Because you are setting up a business that will pay you a wage. This is an important separation that must be made for invoicing, taxes, expense claims, insurances and banking (eg. merchant or credit card facilities with your bank). You can learn more about these business principles by visiting a number of business - basics websites.

This manual is based on the Australian experience and of course you will need to look more closely at your own country's relevant business guides and legislation. Google "business registration nameofcountry"

In order to open a business bank account you first need to register your business. This does not necessarily need to be the name of your publication. I simply registered my name as a "Sole Proprietor", which gave me an ABN - Australian Business Number. So the tax office came to know my business as "John Hancock trading as The Word" Take your ABN, your business registration certificate and three forms of personal identity to the bank when you open your business account.

This can all be done in a day and is a real buzz, a day you and your family will never forget!

Days 7 - 10

More market research Create a list of contacts and email addresses of local businesses in your town. This is tedious work; you are building a prospect list. As you research you will start to get a better gut feeling of what businesses out there advertise, what they are looking for and what your competition will be.

This information helps you determine your niche. You will continue to update this list over the years and every qualified contact adds that much more value to your business. The best sources for this research are, in order:

· Your competition - advertisers in other publications. You should collect these regularly now and spend at least half a day every week trawling through your competitor publications. On your EzyCalendar chart, note features that your competitors run. You will get those advertisers next year!

· Advertisers on local community hub-type websites in your town.

· Half-page and full-page advertisers in Yellowpages - you know they value print advertising, but be sure contact 1-2 months before Yellowpages commences its sales campaign in your town, otherwise all these prospects will be broke! Simply call Yellowpages and ask when they are sweeping the area.

· Radio/TV ads - you know these businesses value advertising, so you augment their campaign with print and web.

· Google searches for businesses that match your planned feature. Why are the successful publications/websites successful? Why are the struggling publications/websites struggling? What are your unique selling point, your advantages over the competition?

Determining your niche

You have now had a few days to consider the critical question - What will your publication be about? By this stage you should have a good idea of what sort of publication you are going to run, your audience, the size/look, frequency, stock, relevant distribution models and how you are going to sell into your market.

Discuss your decisions with friends and family. While you can amend your decision as you learn about the business, it is prudent to get this as close to the mark as possible from the beginning. Significant chopping and changing will confuse your audience and you can lose them quickly.

WEEK 3 Day 11

Website Setup

Run through the Ezyzine demo again. Choose a name for your publication and create a logo and masthead. Contact EzyMedia if you would like to a logo for your publication - $150+gst for logo, $200+gst for logo and banner.

Register the name you have chosen with a domain company, eg www.cheapdomains.com.au for a .com.au name, or www.godaddy.com for a .com name. A .com.au name will take a couple of days for approval because it is a business domain name. You need to point your server address to the Ezyzine IP address. Most domain registration sites will carry instructions for doing this. If this process is not explained on the site you register your domain, contact that site for instructions.

Fill in pricing for your rate card. See EzyMedia rates adviser chart. Go to the Manage Site section of your new site and fill in all your details, including your menu headers, subsections, extras etc. Upload your logo and choose among the colour schemes.

Upload 6 articles with pictures. Upload a Poll question. Upload some events happening in your region. Email your new site to friends and family. Gather their feedback and amend. Encourage them to submit articles and pictures.

Days 12 - 14

Let them know!

Create an excel list of contacts and email addresses of community organizations, clubs and groups. The column headers should be ORGANISATION NAME, CONTACT NAME, PHONE, EMAIL, POSTAL ADDRESS Upload these to your EzySales module.

Using this list, email the following:

Dear [first name], My name is _____ ______ and today I launched the website for a new community publication "_______". Over the next 3-months I will be meeting with businesses, community organizations and agencies to discuss my plans for a local newspaper/magazine that is written entirely by the readers, meaning your story makes headlines.

For more information, please visit www.______.com.au/profile. You are welcome to upload an article to www.______.com.au today. We will be promoting this venture online and via other media and would appreciate your help to promote the community publication through your community and business networks.

Please let me know if we can include your organization on our distribution run sheet. Regards, ..

 

Other promotional ideas Contact your local TV and radio stations (especially the community stations) - you might even be able to arrange some contra advertising, where you offer them advertising space on your site and in print in exchange for advertising in their media.

When you do start speaking to businesses in WEEK 4, offer discounted advertising in exchange for prizes from their business that you can offer your readers. Swap editorial space (online and print) for wall space in businesses and organizations to place signs about your publication.

Day 15

Contact your suppliers.

By this stage you should have a good idea of what sort of publication you are going to run, your audience, the size/look, frequency etc. Be sure you can fill in every section of the WHO AM I?

WEEK 4 Days 16 - 20

The sell

Get to know your EzyMedia sales kit. Do the exercises at the back of the kit. Check out some of the recommended sales websites, take notes and learn sales. You do not need become a sales guru overnight.

The fundamental lesson in sales is:

a) Know why you are passionate about your product

b) Know the unique selling points of your product

c) Know what Your script is: "Hello. My name is _____ ______ and I am starting a new publication in ________, both print and online. I would like to email your business (or organization) some information about the publication. Can you please give me the name and email address of the person there who is most likely to make decisions about advertising?" Upload this excel list to your EzySales module.

WEEKS 5 & 6 Days 21 -30

Drive around your town. Note the name and address of businesses or public possible drop-off sites for bundles of 10 - 100 copies of your printed publication. This is the beginning of your distribution run-sheet and you will update this regularly.

See the Ezydistribute file in your kit. When you have 20 articles on your website, contact every advertising agency in your local region. Tell them you have just launched a "______" at www.________.com... and you would like the contact details for the relevant 'media buyer': Name, Phone, Email Address, Postal Address.

Create an e-mailout list in Excel with first names and email addresses. Once you have 200 contacts of businesses or organizations that you are confident are likely to advertise in your publication, upload this list to your EzyMailout Module.

Send the following email: Dear [first name], My name is _____ ______ and today I launched the website for a new community publication "_______". The concept is a printed and online magazine [newspaper] that is written entirely by its readers, drawing on popular content submitted and approved via the website.

This model ensures local stories are prominent and allows our advertisers to determine their advertising strategies based on what articles will run in the print edition. Of course, our advertisers may also wish to submit their own articles.

Over the next 3-months I will be meeting with businesses, community organizations and agencies to test the waters, see if this is something they would be ready to support with advertising. I will also be promoting this venture online and via other media.

I am offering my first ten advertisers free online advertising for 9-months. The ads must be 200 x 200 pixels in RGB, as a jpg file. I will provide links from these ads to the customer's website and report back at the end of each month on how many ad-views and click-throughs the ad received.

I also invite all businesses and organizations to freely list their details in the online directory, as well as upload any promotional articles or events. With the support of local business and the community, I hope to offer an alternative online and print media for local content and advertising.

Further information, including a list of some of our upcoming features can be found on www._________.com...

You now need to ring all these prospects. Try to be friendly, but minimize the time you spend on each call. Do your very best to speak to the advertising decision-maker, mentioning your previous email and a compelling offer. You must keep pushing ahead with your ad sales until you have enough to cover your costs. Remember, the first few editions will be your toughest.

Offer something amazing to bring your early advertisers on board for 3 - 6 editions, including excellent rates, free online ads and space for articles. If you offer editorial space, push the advertiser hard for editorial and not dull advertorial.

A warning that advertorial will be marked as such tends to promote higher quality editorial. REMEMBER:

1. Don't do it if it sounds awful

2. Bring everything you know to your business

3. Push your contributors for compelling content

4. Figure out what people want and give them lots of it

5. Join online conversations and forums

6. Be part of the community, get out there

7. Find champion customers

8. Be patient

 

GOOD LUCK and HAPPY PUBLISHING!!!!!!!!!

Media content management systems are fast becoming the tool of tomorrow's content marketing. Content marketing, in its simplest definition, is creating positive conversations around products and/or services through credible content.

We have all had the advertising customers who demand ‘advertorial’ with their ad. The problem is that this reduces the overall quality of the publication, pushing it more to the brochure/catalogue end of the market. Readers find themselves filtering through a bunch of crap as they hunt down the snippets of worthy journalism. The more effort a reader expends in this process, the less likely he/she is to return to that publication.

Of course the even more obvious cost of ‘free’ advertorial is that it costs the publisher to print that space.

An increasingly popular solution to this challenge is ‘adding value’ not by giving away costly print space, but sending print readers online to read more. Advertisers are invited to submit articles and manage their own business directory listings, changing text, specials, images etc whenever they wish.

The implication for print publishers of this sophisticated and growing trend in advertising is the urgent need to get online and engage. If a print publisher does not appease the local advertisers, the only certain thing is that their competition will.

Not surprisingly then in this media-scape, content management systems (CMS's) are on fire! Publishers, both professional and novice, are looking for affordable content management solutions that allow them to compete with the major media publishing companies and really bridge that online / print chasm. The good news is that there are plenty of smart options out there. The bad news is that it is time to bite the bullet and look at new ways of doing business. As Rupert says, "it will be the quick and the nimble media players who change the face of media."

So, where to start? What to look for? How to weigh up the pros and cons of your favourites? CMS software, even narrowed down to newspaper or magazine software, is still an extremely wide and deep pool with a lot on offer. Research strategies that may help you determine the best fit for your needs include:

Online surfing: think of at least 7 different keyword searches you might use for your software search. Remember, the company that has built your ideal match is also doing its best to guess what words you would use, what benefits are important to you.

The wrapping: be careful of 'pretty' sites and keep focused on functionality. This space is on fire and filling up with plenty of players, from cowboys to experts. Some of the best publishing software I bought was from fairly average looking sites, while conversely some of the silliest products I trialled have been from flash Web 2.0 sites that appear to have spent all their dollars on marketing.

Play around: get into their demo newspaper or magazine websites. Start to compile of list of the functions, product implementation factors, support etc that really hit the right chord for you. As you build your wish list, give specifics weightings so that you are prepared to add more or knock some off in order to get the right one for you. You will need less and less time in news sites the more you do, because you will see quickly how a company's product compares to your wish list.

Free publishing software: take a good look at what you can get for free. Often there may be advertising or other requirements when you accept the free software, but these are minor points. Be sure the free versus paid software (sometimes even from the same company) stacks up with your wish list and that it is easily implemented. There is a lot of excellent free publishing software on the market and well worth a look.

 

Blogs and forums: type "blog: (key words)" into Google and this will take you to plenty of sites where others are discussing the good the bad and the ugly of all manner of solutions. Very handy!

Trial it: if on the surface everything looks about right, get in there, sign up, roll up your sleeves, grab a coffee and a sandwich and trial the vendor's software! A lot of people think that if they sign up and then do not use the software, they will be plagued by newsletters and contact forms. Others are still in the land of 'download' and risks associated with that - web based CMS's, represent 95% of newspaper or magazine content management systems, which mean no downloads, only 'switch-ons'.

Contact the vendor: got any questions, get them answered! Just because you are buying online does not mean no customer service. If the company is overseas, email them and ask your questions either in writing or have them call you.

Contact one of their customers: most websites selling websites will show a sample of customer websites. Often the vendor will not be responsible for the final look of their customers' sites, so check out a few and contact one that looks good. Ask why they went with the software you are seriously considering, the level of support they have received, what they would improve etc. You might hear things you had not considered and well worth adding to your wish list. Not only will you get some invaluable feedback on the product, you will make a good industry contact.

Buying the right content management system for your newspaper or magazine is a big decision. There are many web based or 'software as a service' products out there that are surprisingly affordable compared to their unwieldy client server counterparts, relics from another era that would have cost $60k+ only three years ago. So price is unlikely to be as big a purchase hurdle as the fact that you, your staff and your readers will need to learn a new system and once you get rolling with it, you are unlikely change horses for a while. That is a BIG job.

Happy CMS hunting for all you publishers and have some fun. You will be blown away by what is out there and how it will revolutionise your business.

 

 

 

  

Today EzyMedia completed the new site for PANPA (Pacific Area Newspaper Publishers Association), which will be launched shortly. Very exciting.

Additionally, we have been working on some major upgrades to our systems,
including:

• Complete re-write of the business logic layer for faster performance
• Upgrade of servers
• Image Rotator
• Create Custom Pages
• Integration of a powerful ad-server that will afford significant flexibility of ad-placement, detailed reports on ad-performance and allow EzyMedia to sell online advertising on behalf of its customers!
• Upgraded Editor module, providing significantly more flexibility and direct HTML
• Integration of social media sites
• News ticker
• Upgraded Forums and Blogs
• Upgraded Video
• Press-release feature (website automatically extracts subject, content and images from press release emails)
• PDF Trawler (update your website from your PDF files!)
• 'At a glance' widgets page that displays various content feeds on one page
• Some cool java scripts providing fluid navigation through the site

This month will focus on rolling out the above functionality and setting up sites for new customers, including our first government client.

In partnership with successful US software company Verican, EzyMedia will also now provide:

• A sophisticated online ad-creation and booking system with up-selling features, e-commerce gateway and 24/7 online support
• Manually produced newsletters based on your best stories and advertisers

Finally, EzyMedia has just been accepted onto the Microsoft WebsiteSparks program for startup entrepreneurial companies!

To our customers and well-wishers, thanks for all your support – you are
every part of our success!

John Hancock
Manager
EzyMedia

EzyMedia provides websites to 26 newspapers across Australia. A new site is only $595, plus $109 per month to cover hosting, upgrades and support (GST exclusive). Online advertising revenues should at least cover this fee within 3-months, not to mention the cost savings in content management and production.